Left behind

Was it lack of members or money that prompted closing of West Side YMCA?

The keys to the Austin YMCA were turned over to a housing organization last month, but it's really been five years since the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago turned its back on the facility in this poor West Side neighborhood.

That's when the Austin Y's parent organization cut programming and stopped making improvements to the building. The swimming pool closed. Summer camp ended. And as programming petered out, so did participation and membership.

The closure comes as the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago, which oversees 23 remaining centers, struggles through the recession and its aftermath. While operating revenue was fairly stable, investment income plummeted, dropping total revenue to $82 million in 2010 from $101 million in 2008. Revenue grew in 2011 when some independent YMCAs joined the regional group.

Yet even before the recession, the Y was disinvesting from and discarding older facilities. Austin is the fifth center closed in nine years, after the New City Y near the old Cabrini Green public housing complex, centers in Washington Park and Roseland on the South Side and one in suburban La Grange.

Nationally, the number of branches has grown slightly. But at the same time Metropolitan Chicago announced it would shut the Austin center, YMCAs in Vernon Hills and Waukegan also announced plans to shutter buildings. Vernon Hills was saved after the village stepped in with funding, at least for a while. Waukegan closes its doors at the end of the month.

Photo

The Austin YMCA's exterior and former recreation room

Richard Malone, CEO of YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago, says the closures aren't evidence of systemwide financial problems. “We have a strong balance sheet, we're not highly leveraged and our cash-to-debt ratio is very strong,” he says.

He also rejects the suggestion that the Y is abandoning a poor neighborhood. The Y never wavered from preserving the low-income housing in the Austin building, he says, and it “explored many, many options” before deciding to close the recreational side.

“We bring millions of dollars of services to folks who cannot afford them,” Mr. Malone says. “But on occasion, we also have to make very difficult business decisions based on usage of programs or centers.”

Throughout the country, there are centers that operate at a loss, but those are offset by others that produce income.

“If you had all your Ys draining your balance sheet, that would be a big problem,” Mr. Malone says. “We're fortunate to have some Ys—through donations, programming income or memberships—that are able to defray the costs of significant drains.”

The closure and sale of the New City building helped the organization weather the recession. The Y says New City had lost membership to competition in the area and its mission to serve low-income people diminished as residents left Cabrini.

Photo

The pool

The $54 million it received from the 2007 sale allowed the Metropolitan YMCA to fund programs and facilities elsewhere. For instance, the Y spent “under $2.5 million” to renovate Kelly Hall YMCA in the Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side. That center serves more than 1,000 children and adults with after-school programs, sports leagues and counseling. Although it loses $600,000 a year, the Y says it is committed to that center because of the need in the community.

The Austin YMCA, which was built in 1923, was passed over for new funding. There was no effort to fix the pool or bring in new programs. There was no marketing campaign to attract new members.

“We didn't think it was prudent,” Mr. Malone says. In turning over the building to Single Room Housing Assistance Corp. for $1, the Y is helping fulfill a community need, he says, and following a nationwide trend within the Y to move away from being a housing agency.

'DIFFICULT'

John Lafley, former vice president of supportive services for metro Chicago, says the closed Ys “all had major issues with deferred maintenance. Austin was next.”

“They didn't have the money or resources to take care of the buildings,” says Mr. Lafley, who retired in 2006. “Bringing up the buildings to modern standards, it was difficult. You either went in and rehabbed or you vacated and built new ones. That's not just in Chicago but on a national level.”

Photo

An after-school program at YMCA's Kelly Hall in Humboldt Park.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Austin center's basketball and racquetball courts were crowded, and the pool was busy with swimming lessons during the day and pool parties at night. The men's and women's changing rooms had attendants; a VIP changing room featured a whirlpool and massages.

By October, there was only after-school care for 50 children and the basketball courts, which were available for pick-up games.

When it closed, the center had 175 members, far below the local average of 2,000. Monthly membership fees were $26 for adults, $10 for youth and $40 for a family pass. Mr. Malone insists membership isn't a criterion used to close facilities because the Y gives scholarships and free passes to those in need.

He says the decision came down to usage. Most days, he says, there were only 10 visitors.

Mr. Malone declines to give budget figures for the Austin Y but says, “With less then a tenth of the membership of a typical Y, you can imagine the financial picture was pretty bleak—not sustainable. But the financial numbers alone don't tell the whole story. We need to look at usage, age of the building, capital requirements, where else we are providing services and other mitigating factors when we make these tough decisions to close a center.”

“We haven't walked away from making investments in urban communities when we see a demand,” he says, noting the Y is busing Austin members to the YMCA in Logan Square and another nearly eight miles away in Little Village.

Kent Johnson, executive vice president and chief operations officer at the national YMCA, which is based in Chicago, says the Y has combined regional groups—Naperville merged with metropolitan Chicago, for example—to save administrative costs. Nationally, there are 50 more YMCA branches than in 2008.

Still, in the past year alone, YMCAs have closed in Riverside and Bakersfield, Calif., Memphis, Tenn., Little Rock, Ark., and Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Mr. Malone says there are no other Chicago branches with problematic membership numbers.

Photo

A locker room and weightlifting area

In Austin, activists were stunned by the decision to close.

“It's a young population so it makes all the sense in the world to have a YMCA here. Maybe you have a problem that kids don't buy memberships. Families are dysfunctional and unstable. But so far as kids going to the gym, that's not a problem,” says the Rev. Marshall Hatch of New Mountain Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church.

Ald. Emma Mitts, 37th, says “Metro YMCA supported the Austin Y during its slow slide into the red, with declining membership being a major financial hardship. Could they have marketed it more? Probably. Could the Austin community have been more proactive and supportive in using the available services? Again, probably so, but now we can't afford to look back.”

She has been meeting with community leaders and Single Room Housing to find a way to bring programming back to the building.

“I think bringing in programs will complement the housing that we have,” says Eric Rubenstein, executive director of Chicago-based Single Room Housing. “We certainly have the space.”